The Eternal Crusade
by Imperial Knight
Summary: This story is an alternative vision for the Star Wars universe. It opens shortly after the Emperor and Lord Vader's death and the destruction of Piett's SSD flagship at the Battle of Endor aboard the ISD Mk II Ascension. It is the story of how one Imperial Captain and those around him chose to fight their allotted Fate by declaring a Holy War on Destiny itself.


The Emperor is Dead.

Grim thoughts coupled to a strange emptiness filled Captain Talmere's mind as he forcibly tore his eyes from the fiery violent deaths of millions of his comrades in arms to witness his bridge officers on board the Imperial Star Destroyer Ascension's command deck stare out in growing panic and horror the command deck viewscreen. Several of them including his recently transfered XO among them collapsed to their knees out of shock and more disturbingly to the thirty five year old Captain...naked fear.

"Emperor preserve us." His soon to be former XO whispered loudly openly and pathetically weeping in front of everyone.

"The Emperor is dead, Commander Tain." The young Captain said still focused on the holo-display of the battle. The Rebels were recklessly charging forward in their bloodlust as smaller ships sought glory and larger more powerful but more vulnerable ships remained behind. The Rebellion was counting on the demoralization of the Fleet to carry them to Victory. Unfortunately, it was a strategy that appeared to be working as confusion and fear filled the comm chatter filtering through the bridge. "We must look now toward our own preservation but not until I see the Rebellion pay the price. Colonel! Recall our TIE fighters, interceptors, and bombers. See our assault gunboats are loaded with space bombs, our returning bombers armed with heavy rockets, and the fighters and interceptors both armed with advanced concussion missiles. Deploy our TIE Advanced fighters in close combat air patrol around the Ascension. What has happened to the SSD at Fate's hands shall not happen to us." He turned his back on the holo-display and turned to his command staff and officers hatred filling his heart filling it with purpose. Fortune favors the brave. "From this moment forward, WE are the Empire now. From this moment forward, strength will be gained not lost through this conflict. Get back on your feet, Commander! The eyes of the galaxy are upon us now!"

"Ye-Yes, sir." He wipes away his tears and climbs back to his feet abashed.

"General Ravine!" The Captain turned to a heavily built soldier wearing a cybernetic eye that glowed an honest fiery red.

"Yes, sir!" The General saluted smartly.

"Prepare your several companies of elite commandos and as many regular men as you may need for a diversionary rescue raid to the surface. We can not allow the 501st to remain in Rebel hands. They must be back in Imperial hands as soon as possible. Take two Assault transports. Fill them with medical personal and support staff to take with you. Our men may have suffered dearly from the battle on the surface Since the Rebels have destroyed the ground shield generator, we might as well kill the few Rebels and their pets on the surface now that they think they've won."

"With respect, sir; we would be vulnerable without a planetary blockade and the support of the Fleet in orbit. My men wouldn't last long enough to reach the surface." The General said quietly.

"I know that, General. I'm not about to deploy our forces so wastefully. The Rebel Fleet will not survive this engagement unless they flee the field. Now here are your orders: Prepare the men. Load everything except the AT-ATs and take only what you need of the AT-STs. Be mindful of primitive traps laid by the rebel's furry pets. Although the risk of falling prey to them should be much less now. Ensure that the commando companies are dressed to take advantage of camouflage. The last burst transmission from the surface showed many of the Rebel commandos were equipped in simple guille suits. Use those to approach the base. Equip your men with IFF contacts so they will not be deceived even if they become separated. Use stealth, blend in and gain a lay of where the Rebels are keeping our people, employ a diversion using those elite men among our regulars that you trust to sow confusion and chaos among the rebel ranks who will no doubt be drunk on their 'victory' when you arrive. Take as many of the AT-PT's and plainly dressed storm troopers as needed for your diversion but above all else await my signal to launch. These Rebel Royalists shall pay dearly for killing the Emperor and Lord Vader. While your concerns for your men are admirable, General and I want you to share them but now that you have your orders I fully expect you to carry them out."

"Yes, sir." The General did not understand nor did any of his bridge officers who shuffled uncomfortably in their seats but he saluted and left the bridge to prepare his raiding force.

"Lieutenant," The Captain turned back to a slight man in his late twenties. "Open a channel on the Imperial Hyperlink Frequency and all bands used by Rebel and Commercial traffic. No encryption, broad-band transmission. Flood the comm waves, I want everyone to hear us."

"Sir?" Too many of his officers were questioning orders today, Christopher thought as he glared daggers at his officer. "Yes, sir. Preparing open transmission, all frequencies, unencrypted, flooding all available communication channels." The officer focused on his work.

"Navigator, I want you to plot a course that takes us around the Endor moon elliptical orbit equatorial vector. Take these waypoints." The Captain quickly plotted a course that would put the mass of the Endor moon between them and the distracted Rebel Fleet.

"Very good. Commander Adama, have our TIE Fighters and Interceptors been loaded with advanced concussion missiles? Have our TIE bombers and Assault Gunboats been loaded with Rockets and Space Bombs respectively?"

"Yes, sir." The Colonel answered.

"Scramble them. I want them in space but keep them in close area guard positions around the Ascension until I give the order to attack. TIE Fighters are to guard the bombers and the TIE Interceptors are to escort the Assault Gunboats to their designated targets. The TIE Advanced are to continue to defend the Ascension from Rebel fighter and bomber attack. I want every single TIE not down for repairs in space. No reserves. Is that understood, Colonel?".

"Completely, sir!" The Colonel salutes smartly and left to go join his squadrons in space.

Ten minutes pass before the Captain speaks into his communicator. "General? Are your men prepared?"

"Yes, sir. The assault and tyderian shuttles are loaded, Captain. Waiting your signal to launch."

The Captain turns to his XO, "Good. The General won't have to wait long, Commander Tain. Wait for my signal," The Captain makes a chopping motion with his hand impacting the comm display and startling the Comm officer then give the General his permission to launch, understood?"

The XO snapped to attention. "Aye Aye, Captain!"

"Good." He turns once again to his Comm Officer. "Make sure the ship-wide intercom is also turned on, Lieutenant. Today we step into history." The Captain stepped up to the holo-projection camera so his image would be displayed to both friend and foe throughout the galaxy.

"Broad-band Imperial Hyper-frequency bands lit. Communication packets now flooding through the IHSF Network with our busy signal. Ship-wide Intercom channels all open sir. You are now live, sir." The Comm officer makes a cutting motion with his hand.

"This is Imperial Class Star Destroyer Ascension to all hands and all vessels," The Captain stood stiffly at attention on his holo-communicator platform as it projected his image across the Empire. "You have been deceived. We all have been...for untold generations, the rot and corruption at the heart of the Republic was kept in stagnant complacency by the hand Fate dealt against us through its Oligarchical Royalist Republic and the protection of its cursed Jedi. For scarcely 20 years in the span of that recorded Galactic History, the Empire has all but cleansed the galaxy of that particular corruption, we are now at risk of seeing its last remaining seed flower in our blood and sacrifice even as our noble and glorious sovereign Emperor finally succumbed to Fate's cruel Destiny for Him...through the so-called 'dark side of the Force.'

The Captain's fist clenches tightly behind his back as outside the porthole, a Rebel X-Wing bursts apart leaving a trail of ionized gasses as its TIE Advanced killer flies through the vapor of space it leaves behind. More Imperial Star Destroyers finally began moving to withdraw from their place in the battle-line as several fought on to their deaths. Those lives sacrificed to save others who abandoned them in their darkest hour.

"To all those who have faithfully followed the Emperor and served the citizens of the Empire, I must ask you what happens now that Fate has torn our beloved Emperor away? For too long have we been the pawns, dupes, and puppets of Fate through its 'Force'-chosen puppets. During the height of the Corrupt Republic our Empire rose from the ashes of who but the decaying remnants Royalist families now ruling the Rebel Alliance reigned supreme over us? Who were any but those not so beloved of Destiny to be born as one of them but the helpless, the weak, the dependent? Who did we turn to except their sclerotic central government or their Jedi enforcers to 'help' us through our problems for the 'greater good'. I tell you now that there was no 'greater good' for the 'greater number'. Yet for all their high-minded talk they left us all weaker and more dependent on their Force than on helping us gain the capability of creating our own Fates without this insipid universal Force. On the right hand, Fate gave us the vile Jedi order and their oligarchical Republic who across all those endless eons of time carved the galaxy into zone's of influence and control and set us against one another in the process. All to keep us divided, weak, powerless. Yet Fate wanted to ensure we were all presented a false alternative by offering us its Left hand: the so-called dark side of the Force. We were told that if we hated seeing what the Jedi and the Organas would make of us that he had to follow the Will of those Force-wielders who have been corrupted by its power bringing madness, chaos, a wasting destruction, and now death on such a scale that is unimaginable even in the dark Maelstrom that is this Civil War. The Tarkin Doctrine has failed to bring us stability and it falls to those of us who survive and remain loyal to generations yet unborn to understand the lessons this failure would teach us."

The Captain's face hardened perceptibly. "To all those who have followed the cause of Rebellion against the Empire, why am I your enemy? Have you never once looked in the mirror to see your own true reflections? Who was it that set you against me? That divided us as if we were nothing but their puppets to be sent to war, killed in their names, merely to secure THEIR power over your children and all those whom you leave behind. Whom do YOU serve by fighting the Empire now? I ask you with sincerity, is it the same remnant noble families of the former Galactic Republic and later Imperial Senate before they turned against us? Is it the same oligarchical families that Fate has used to dominate all of us and enforce its Will across all of recorded time and space!? How is accepting Fate's false choices for your masters to secure its domination over you for all time, "Liberty"? Is that what you truly call "Freedom"!? "

"The Emperor and the 'Dark Lord' slain by your would-be oligarch's Fate encrusted hands along with the very weapon you came here to destroy! Fate's left hand holding the "dark-side" now withdraws itself even as Fate reaches out with its "light-side" right hand to force the galaxy's only surviving Jedi down our collective throats again! Would you submit to not fashioning your own Destinies? Do you want to be nothing more than the pawns of Fate for all time? Will you condemn yourselves and your families to ruin, waste, strife, and death simply to continue your tiny part in this epoch long blood-sport just to hand some Royalist princesses their tiaras' back and bow to the next generation of some oligarchy of corrupt, arrogant Jedi!? "

The fiery conviction burning in the Captain's heart shone through and infused his words with passion, "I implore you to take but a single moment of all time to consider what you have done and what you are doing by making me your enemy. I am offering you the only true Freedom one can ever exist in this galaxy! Fight with me! Together we shall create our own Fates anew! Fight with me and secure the right to choose the value and meaning of your own lives! All who fight at my side shall be my brother and sister in arms for as long as I draw breath. Cast aside the yoke of Fate's control over you! Join us here and now and we shall fight Fate and the Force together with but one Vision! One Purpose!"

It was almost time. All of the TIE squadrons, assault transports and ground attack craft of the General's raiding force were surging ahead or racing to the surface along an equatorial track as the Ascension sling-shot itself around the dark-side of the Endor moon.

The Captain brings his clenched fist down by his side ignoring the shouts and impassioned denials of his bridge crew. "To all those who will fight and die at my side, I swear by all I hold dear that this is the end of the Jedi and the Sith! All who seek the final end of the oligarchies and noble houses who seek to rule and have slaked their vanity and their hubris in our blood for generations uncounted as the beloved children of some vile and bloodthirsty Fate, stand with me and fight for the right to create your own Destiny."

The Captain took an exultant breath. "Today marks the Final Death of any Fate that would tear the very heart and soul I have earned from me! We are the Masters of our Minds! We are the Captains of our Souls! Today is the day we make our own Fates! Let this day mark a glorious new dawn that will see the final deathblow for Fate and all of its Force soaked puppeteers!"

The Captain of the Imperial Class Star Destroyer Ascension smiled triumphantly as the engines of the bulbous Mon Cal Rebel flagship finally came into the forward view-port where it lay at the rear of the Rebel formation busy as it was coordinating the space battle from the orbit of the Endor moon thinking itself safe from Imperial Vengeance and Righteous Wrath. The Captain ordered watching his renewed officers with an unconcealed joy.

"To all those who oppose the glorious new beginning of our Holy Crusade, I shall say simply this: All Batteries! All Forward Guns!"

"Fire! The Emperor is dead! Long Live the Empire!"


End file.
